Eastern alumna Valerie Averill’s memory will continue to live on at Eastern.

The renaming of the National Residence Hall Honorary/Resident Hall Association office in honor of Averill was approved Jan. 14 at the Board of Trustees meeting.

“I can think of few things more appropriate than (renaming the NRHH/RHA office), because it will be a lifetime reminder to generations of students as to who Valerie was and how she impacted them in ways that they will never know,” said Mark Hudson, director of Housing and Dining Services.

Renaming the office after Averill was the first step this year in honoring her.

“We are going to have a name engraved in one of the stone benches in the Centennial Plaza that sits behind Ford Hall and we are going to plant a tree in her memory outside of Pemberton (Hall), because that was the hall that she worked in during her last year here and she had a particular connection to that building,” said Hudson, who was a lifelong friend to Averill.

Hudson has an agreement with the Alumni Association and the University Foundation to work on the projects to honor Averill and said it is his goal to have the projects finished by the end of the spring semester.

Averill received her bachelor’s degree and completed her masters in higher education while attending Eastern from 1977 to 1983.

Both Hudson and President Emeritus, Louis Hencken met Averill when she was a freshman at Eastern in the fall of 1977.

“Valerie was very conscientious, dedicated, great when she worked with students and, once she left EIU, she was instrumental in working in housing with students,” Hencken said.

Averill’s family established the Valerie S. Averill Leadership Development Endowment through her alma mater to assist developing residence hall leaders.

Earnings from the endowment are used to fund registration fees, travel and related expenses to support students attending state, regional and national residence hall leadership conferences.

“Averill’s family is raising money for the endowment fund because they wanted to make sure that future generations of Eastern residence hall leaders got the opportunities that Valerie received to go to these conferences where she discovered her passion and life goals,” Hudson said.

Averill was president of RHA for two years and became involved with the National Association of College and University Resident Halls for more than 30 years.

She served as the regional advisor to three divisions of NACURH including the Great Lakes region, along with the Southwest region and the Midwest region.

For the last eight years of her life, Averill served as the national advisor to NACURH.

Joey McNamara, coordinator of Student Involvement for Programming at Lynn University, said Averill had an amazing ability to motivate people to do what they are passionate about and to never give up.

Averill served as McNamara’s adviser when he was the National Chair for NACURH in 2010.

“She taught me how to work with people and she always had new ideas to inspire people and ways to improve the organization, which is what she loved to do,” McNamara said.

Averill worked at universities including Texas Tech University, South Dakota State University, the University of Minnesota at Mankato, Kansas State University, Western Illinois University and the University of South Florida.

“Here is a woman who came to Eastern as scared and nervous as all incoming students do and she rose to be one of the most impactful national residence hall leaders in the nation with her beginning in Charleston, Ill. at EIU,” Hudson said.

Averill died on April 15, 2010 at the age of 51 as a result of complications of diabetes.

“Valerie will be missed and her legacy will live forever within the hearts of the thousands of students that she impacted while she was dedicating her life to improve the lives of students,” Hencken said.

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or rjrodgers@eiu.edu.